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2 Which Chapman Will You Be Attending in 2015? Evolution of the Asian Monsoon and its Impact on Landscape, Environment and Society: Using the Past as the Key to the Future Hong Kong SAR, China June The Width of the Tropics: Climate Variations and Their Impacts Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA July Magnetospheric Dynamics Fairbanks, Alaska, USA 27 September 2 October The MADE Challenge for Groundwater Transport in Highly Heterogeneous Aquifers: Insights from 30 Years of Modeling and Characterization at the Field Scale and Promising Future Directions Valencia, Spain 5 8 October chapman.agu.org

3 Earth & Space Science News Contents 1 JUNE 2015 VOLUME 96, ISSUE 10 NEWS 5Initiative Aims to End Routine Flaring of Natural Gas A new initiative to curtail the wasteful burning of natural gas associated with oil production could lead to significant environmental and public health benefits. OPINION Spreading the Word About Climate Change 8 It has been 1 year since the release of the third U.S. National Climate Assessment. What has been learned over this year, and how can you help to inform the public about these important results? RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT 10 COVER What Can We Learn About Disaster Preparedness from Nepal s Quake? In an interview with Eos, hazard mitigation expert Brian Tucker discusses how researchers and the public can help minimize death and damage from strong earthquakes. Humans Greatly Increase Mercury in the Ocean A study of the natural cycle of mercury reveals that humans are to blame for a five- to sixfold increase in the oceanic concentrations of the potentially toxic element. 28 Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 1

5 NEWS What Will Become of Sweet Briar s Atmospheric Research Station? While faculty members and students of Sweet Briar College scramble to secure their futures elsewhere or fight to keep the institution open, environmental science professor Thomas O Halloran worries about what will become of the college s atmospheric research station, which includes an observation tower standing 2 kilometers away from campus within a sprawling loblolly pine forest. O Halloran was just minutes away from installing a new instrument on the tower on the morning of 3 March when officials at Sweet Briar College, a liberal arts college in Virginia, announced that the school would close at the end of the semester. I was [in the lab] soldering a connector, one of the last things I had to do before putting it on the tower, O Halloran said. If you go into my lab right now, the thing is sitting there with the soldering iron. Now the instrument, which would have measured carbon dioxide fluxes of the forest, rests unattended while O Halloran searches not only for a new job but also for some way to save the research tower and its accompanying laboratory. Because the tower was purchased partly using a private gift bestowed on the college itself, O Halloran cannot simply take it with him to his next position. What the school is telling me is If you want to take it somewhere, someone s going to have to buy it, O Halloran said. specifically those responsible for a wellknown phenomenon that annually blankets the Appalachian Mountains: the Blue Ridge haze. Scientists know that the haze forms when hydrocarbons released by the canopy are oxidized in the air, which turns them into tiny particles that scatter blue light. The effect can be strengthened by chemicals emitted by upwind coal- burning power plants but occurs naturally even without air pollution. With the research tower and facility, O Halloran intended to investigate how this haze relates to a documented cooling effect seen in the southeastern United States. The newest device would have made the tower an AmeriFlux site one of more than a hundred dotted across the country, making up a network of atmospheric research stations that study energy fluxes, carbon dioxide storage, and water vapor around North and South America. The tower also holds a Pheno Cam, a camera designed to observe the greenness of the canopy, part of a national phenology research network studying the timing of ecological changes. O Halloran also had collaborations planned within and outside the Sweet Briar community, including allowing the biology department to install sticky traps on the tower to collect insect specimens, working with forestry scientists to study the surrounding pine forest, and collaborating with scientists at nearby schools to provide data for other studies. His site was such a great opportunity because the infrastructure was already established, said Quinn Thomas, an ecology professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who was going to use the research tower to study carbon cycling. Other research towers exist in the region one at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and a set at Duke University in North Carolina but these facilities are farther away and do not typically offer the same kinds of opportunities to undergraduate students as the facility at Sweet Briar, which is a much smaller institution, O Halloran said. Women in Science Sweet Briar, a women s college, allows undergraduates opportunities to do serious research in atmospheric and environmental sciences at a time when women are famously underrepresented in many scientific fields. So the loss of the research tower and facility would also mean a lost opportunity for Sweet Briar s current students who want to pursue scientific Research Dreams Less than a year ago, in the summer of 2014, O Halloran and a small team erected the 37- meter- tall tower, which stretches 17 meters above the canopy. They also built a research shed at its base, complete with equipment, electricity, Internet access, and air conditioning. Together, these components form Sweet Briar s Land- Atmosphere Research Station. The tower itself hosts a myriad of instruments, most dedicated to studying the gases that contribute to aerosol formation above the canopy. The rest include devices that measure meteorological features such as air temperature, humidity, incoming and reflected solar radiation, and wind speed and direction. Instruments on the tower also measure precipitation amount, rate, and intensity. O Halloran planned to focus on studying air quality and the formation of aerosols, Verena Joerger, a senior at Sweet Briar College, and environmental sciences professor Thomas O Halloran check instruments at the top of the atmospheric research tower. Rob Alexander Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 3

6 NEWS Meridith De Avila Khan/Sweet Briar College Looking up the 37- meter- tall atmospheric research tower. careers but need research experience, O Halloran said. Verena Joerger, who used the tower to conduct research for her senior thesis, is among the last students to study at the tower. Throughout the summer of 2014, Joerger helped O Halloran build the tower and the laboratory, which included learning to climb the tower, installing instruments, and outfitting the wooden research shed with equipment. I might not have felt as comfortable volunteering for those types of activities if I were in a co- ed environment, Joerger said. At a women s college you don t have that feeling that maybe you re not as qualified as your male peers. Using the data collected at the tower, Joerger created a research project and presented a poster (see JoergerAGUPoster) at AGU s 2014 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. Next fall, she will be starting graduate school in atmospheric sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. However, for students who have yet to graduate, prospects are more grim. Emily Dallas, a current junior at Sweet Briar, was going to conduct a summer research project studying solar radiation, but now those plans must be put on hold. In fact, the day the school announced it would close, Dallas and O Halloran had planned to meet and discuss in depth what her research project would be, Dallas said. Now she must search for a new summer research opportunity to build her scientific resume before transferring to a new school in the fall. Opportunities Lost If research can no longer continue at the facility, future students will miss out on being a part of something that is a lot bigger than Sweet Briar, said Joerger, because it is an opportunity that most students at small liberal arts colleges wouldn t have. The tower was going to be part of two international research networks. We could do it with undergraduates and we could do it with women, O Halloran said. Right now, it has no future. By JoAnna Wendel, Staff Writer River Flow 2016 St. Louis, Mo. July 11 15, 2016 Eighth International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics Main Topics: River Flow and Transport Processes Sediment Transport and River Morphodynamics River Floods River Management, Ecology, and Restoration Submission Deadlines: Aug. 1, 2015 Abstract submission opens Sept. 1, 2015 Abstract submission closes Dec. 15, 2015 Deadline for submission of full paper April 15, 2016 Deadline for Master Class applications May 1, 2016 Early registration ends Chair: George Constantinescu (UI) Co-Chairs: Marcelo Garcia (UIUC) Dale Chapman (LCCC and NGRREC) Daniel Hanes (SLU) NGRREC 4 // Eos 1 June 2015

7 NEWS Randy Showstack Initiative Aims to End Routine Flaring of Natural Gas Faith Nwadishi has heard it all before when it comes to promises to end the routine flaring of natural gas that is associated with oil production. Nwadishi, a resident of Nigeria s oil- rich Delta State, said that although her country approved a law in 1979 to end gas flaring, the routine flaring continues. Communities near the flaring sites don t know the difference between day and night because they go to bed with active gas flare sites, said Nwadishi. She is the national coordinator in Nigeria for Publish What You Pay, a nongovernmental organization focusing on transparency in extractive industries. Women go to gas flare sites to dry their fish and sell to the people without knowing the implications of what they are doing, she said. She added that gas flaring is a threat to my fundamental right to life because gas flaring hampers my right to a clean environment and gas flaring is evil. Nwadishi was one of the featured speakers at a 17 April event at the World Bank in Washington, D. C., to launch a new initiative to end the routine flaring of natural gas by 2030 (see Flaring is a widely used practice to dispose of natural gas, particularly when there is a lack of infrastructure to use the gas productively. Nwadishi said she was pleased that 25 countries, companies, and development institutions, which together are responsible for more than 40% of global gas flaring, already have committed to the initiative. However, she said, the commitment needs to be translated Faith Nwadishi, national coordinator in Nigeria for the nonprofit Publish What You Pay. into action to help communities affected by pollution from gas flaring. Health and Environmental Issues Related to Gas Flaring Gas flaring can emit a number of hazardous substances that can affect public health, including carbon monoxide, which can cause respiratory problems; benzene, which is carcinogenic; and volatile organic compounds, which help to create ground level ozone and can induce nausea and breathing difficulties. According to the World Bank, There is, however, little definitive data as to how proximity to flares, duration of exposure, etc. are linked to actual health problems as few studies of the health impact of flaring have been carried out. In addition to health threats posed by the approximately 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas routinely flared each year from thousands of oil fields around the world, the flaring also pumps about 350 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) nearly 1% of total CO 2 emissions in 2013 into the atmosphere and contributes to black carbon, which affects the radiation balance in the Arctic, according to the World Bank. That flared gas adds emissions equivalent to that of about 77 million cars, according to bank spokespeople. Moreover, if the gas were used for power generation it could provide 750 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, more than what is currently used in all of Africa, the bank noted. The initiative, Zero Routine Flaring by 2030, calls for endorsers to commit to no routine gas flaring at new oil fields and to work as quickly as possible no later than 2030 and to identify solutions to end routine flaring at existing oil production sites. Initial endorsers of the initiative include 9 countries, 10 oil companies, and 6 development institutions. Of the countries endorsing the initiative, two, Russia and Kazakhstan, are among the eight largest flaring countries; together, those two account for more than 65% of total flaring, according to satellite data estimates from 2012 cited by the World Bank. The other six large emitters are Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, the United States, Algeria, and Venezuela. The initiative recognizes the distinction between routine flaring and flaring that may need to be done for safety or production protocols. Routine Flaring Must Come to an End Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, said the wasteful, routine flaring of natural gas must come to an end. He said, These flares represent inaction, and a stark reality that millions of people go to sleep each night lacking basic energy resources, while a valuable resource that could provide the energy goes up in flames, often just a short distance from their homes. Kim added, This is unsustainable and unacceptable, particularly because we know we can build the infrastructure and apply existing new technical and regulatory frameworks and sound energy policies to harness this resource and put it to productive use. The flaring initiative will stand as a tangible contribution to reducing global CO 2 emissions. He said that with the United Nations (UN) climate summit in Paris later this year, the flaring initiative will stand as a tangible contribution to reducing global CO 2 emissions. Ban Ki- moon, secretary- general of the United Nations, said that gas flaring seems to be a symbol of prosperity and wealth but that the wasted gas could be used more beneficially. Ban said he is looking to the business community and to scientists to help find ways to reduce wasteful flaring and enhance energy efficiency. Flaring and Black Carbon Børge Brende, Norway s minister of foreign affairs, said that his country banned gas flaring from the outset. Since routine flaring is not an option, industry has had to work creatively. The associated gas is being used, and it increases our productivity. Brende added that gas flaring causes 40% of the black carbon in the Arctic. We know that gas flaring in the Arctic is especially harmful. Black carbon from gas flaring settles on Arctic snow and sea ice, darkens the Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 5

8 NEWS surface, and accelerates the melting of the ice, he said. Menahi Al- Anzi, deputy CEO for the exploration and gas directorate of the Kuwait Oil Company, said that since the country s gas flaring reduction program began in , flaring has been reduced from about 17% of total gas production to 1.1%. Al- Anzi told Eos that his message to others who have not yet endorsed the World Bank s initiative is that the initiative is really about human beings lives, their health, their power generation. It is really humanity more than just economics, so people need to look at this from this side. Hurdles to Overcome Several oil company executives also attended the World Bank s launch of the initiative. They included Jorma Ollila, chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, which has endorsed the initiative. Ollila said that for the initiative to be a success, more parties must sign on, particularly more countries where flaring takes place. He added that stakeholders have to stick together in the campaign to end routine flaring. You need alternate ways to use natural gas produced with oil, Ollila said. You need facilities to capture gas, pipelines to support it, and customers to sell it to. Infrastructure and markets can t be built by governments, companies, or development organizations alone. It requires partnerships. Eldar Sætre, CEO of Statoil, added that his company believes that meeting the target of zero routine flaring by 2030 is one of the most important contributions that our industry can make toward mitigating climate change. A new initiative aims to end the routine flaring of natural gas at oil wells by Solomon Asamoah, vice president for infrastructure, private sector, and regional integration at the African Development Bank, told Eos the hurdles to involve more companies in the initiative include publicity and pressure. I am a firm believer that lecturing and trying to get companies to do the right thing on [their] own is not powerful enough. You have to have legislation or you have to have financial incentives or financial disincentives for them to adopt these kinds of behaviors. So it s a joint thing between the governments and the private sector. But I think the regulatory issues, the legal issues that govern investment in oil and gas, are where the issue needs to be addressed. A Complicated Mix Kandeh Yumkella, CEO of the UN s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, said that Africa should be the leader on the issue of ending routine gas flaring. Yumkella, who has been instrumental in pushing the initiative, said the wasted gas could provide energy for the 620 million Africans who currently lack access to electricity. He added that in the past 5 years, 30% of new oil and gas discoveries have been in Africa. We have no business being energy poor, Yumkella said. Our dream is the following: We go to Paris and everybody has signed the initiative. He told Eos that the initiative is doable and that technology is not the limiting factor. First of all, you need markets, he said, noting that there need to be enabling conditions to provide incentives for investment in infrastructure, including gas pipelines, power plants, and transmission lines. Another key issue is pricing. So it s a complicated mix of public policy and also incentives to get the investments in. Anita Marangoly George, senior director of the World Bank Group s energy and extractives global practice, told Eos that there are already indications that other parties will sign on to the initiative. However, she noted that investments toward reducing flaring are not cheap. These companies who are signing up are therefore committing that wherever in the world they are where they have oil fields both existing as well as green fields they are going to live up to this commitment, she said. That s an incremental investment for which, of course, we believe there are huge environmental, social, and economic returns. However, On an individual company basis, they are a little bit in the dark, because once they capture this gas they have to figure out [if they can] use it economically so they get the return of the investments. George said. So that s why [the issue] has been more difficult. By Randy Showstack, Staff Writer istock.com/hhakim 6 // Eos 1 June 2015

9 MEETING REPORT Connecting the Tropics to Polar Regions Workshop on Connecting the Tropics to the Polar Regions New York, New York, 2 3 June 2014 Discussions centered on the degree of influence of the tropics on the higher latitudes and vice versa. DMSP/SSMI via NASA/GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio Visualization of Arctic sea ice minimum that occurred the week of 12 September 2008, based on satellite data. In the face of a rapidly warming world, it is becoming increasingly important to climate science to understand the dynamics of the polar atmosphere- ocean- sea ice system and the mechanisms that connect the tropics with polar regions. Scientists met in June 2014 at the Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) in New York to discuss the connections between the high and low latitudes in both hemispheres, along with outstanding problems. The workshop brought together 25 experts on tropical climate variability, polar climate variability, atmospheric dynamics, polar oceanography, climate and sea ice modeling, and paleoclimatology, as well as about 30 scientists from LDEO and the surrounding region. The workshop featured sessions on the tropics- pole connection in the Northern Hemisphere, in the Southern Hemisphere, and in paleorecords, as well as how the polar regions feed back to lower latitudes. Discussions centered on the degree of influence of the tropics on the higher latitudes and vice versa. Specific attention was paid to the roles of the atmosphere and ocean, depending on the timescale and time period, in both instrumental and paleoclimate records. Participants also considered processes and patterns, such as the role of atmospheric jets, the Hadley and Ferrel cells, the Antarctic Dipole, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode, the polar vortex, and chaos. The workshop showcased a mix of oral and poster presentations, with a focus on both observations and modeling. A key aim of the workshop was to provide a setting to foster discussion and share advancements in tropical climate studies and polar processes. Direct communications among climate modelers, oceanographers, and atmospheric researchers will improve understanding of what the next generation of models can offer and their limitations in terms of investigating the tropical- polar connections. The workshop also promoted interactions between senior and junior scientists and students, including undergraduates, on timely and critical climate topics. The midlatitude setting in the New York Palisades recalled the recognition by the Lenape Indians that the Hudson River flows both north and south (thanks to tidal forces), echoing the connection between the tropics and the poles. The final program, the participant list, abstracts, and some presentations can be found on the workshop website (http://bit. ly/tropicspoles). An expanded version of this meeting report also can be found on the website. Follow- up activities to this workshop included sessions at the AGU 2014 Fall Meeting titled Extratropical and High- Latitude Storms, Teleconnections, and the Changing Polar Climate and an approved special issue in Journal of Climate, which will be published in Although the deadline for submitting a manuscript was around 1 March, interested parties should still contact Professor David Bromwich at Ohio State University ( polarmet1.mps. ohio - state.edu) for details. The workshop was funded by The Climate Center of LDEO and Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA) and the Director s Office of LDEO. We thank Rob Gerston (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) for providing the image s data. This is Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory contribution By X. Yuan, Division of Ocean and Climate Physics, Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), Palisades, N.Y.; M. A. Cane, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, N.Y., and Division of Ocean and Climate Physics, LDEO; and M. R. Kaplan, Division of Geochemistry, LDEO, Palisades, N.Y.; Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 7

10 OPINION Spreading the Word About Climate Change Last year, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, which summarizes the impacts of climate change in the United States, both now and in the future. A team of more than 300 experts produced the report, with extensive input from a 60- member Federal Advisory Committee, the public, and the broader scientific community. One of the exciting things about last year s report was its new emphasis on the user community. Not only is the report more detailed than previous iterations in summarizing impacts relevant to different states and regions around the country, as well as to different industries, but its format is a highly interactive and visual website (http:// nca2014.globalchange.gov/). At the same time, all the data that went into the analysis is available on the website for scientists who want to better understand the analysis. The point, of course, is that it is important for the public to understand some of the very serious implications of climate change, and it is equally important for the scientific community to help explain the issue in a way the public can both grasp and use to make decisions. Two of the lead authors of the National Climate Assessment recently took up the challenge by writing about the report and what has changed over the last year in an editorial in a community newspaper. Their article appears on the next page. We hope this encourages other scientists to follow their example! By Alexandra Shultz, Director of Public Affairs, AGU; istock.com/gmutlu MS2/MS3 Magnetic Susceptibility Equipment Wide range of sensors for field and laboratory use Noise levels down to 2x10-6 SI Susceptibility/Temperature system Magnetic Susceptibility System Soil and erosion studies, palaeoclimatics, pollution studies, sedimentology North American dealer ASC Scientific E: W: 8 // Eos 1 June 2015

11 OPINION Climate Change and Our Nation Republished by permission of The News- Gazette (see Permission does not imply endorsement. For links to the papers discussed below, see _ NCAreview. One year ago marked the release of the National Climate Assessment, the most comprehensive analysis to date of how climate change is affecting every corner of our nation our health, water, food and more. The assessment made clear that climate change is not just a problem for the future, but is happening now across the United States. Americans are already being affected by increases in heat waves and heavy downpours, rising sea level, and other impacts of climate disruption. Recent changes are occurring more than 10 times faster than past natural changes, and many lines of evidence make clear that emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas are the primary cause of the last halfcentury s warming. The assessment also showed that large reductions in global emissions of heat- trapping gases could reduce future climate change and avoid some of its most damaging impacts. In the year since the assessment s release, new scientific developments have told a consistent and compelling story that points to the need for urgent action to address this great challenge. NASA and NOAA analyses show that 2014 was the warmest year on record. Nine of the 10 hottest years have taken place since Over the last five decades, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, and this decade looks like it will be warmer still. So far in 2015, January through March was the warmest first quarter on record globally. And we understand why. Atmospheric carbon dioxide traps heat, and its level in early 2015 eclipsed a long- standing prehistoric high, as it reached a concentration of 400 parts per million, a level that has not occurred in millions of years. For the last 200,000 years, the period of human habitation on Earth, the atmosphere s carbon dioxide level has fluctuated between 170 and 280 parts per million, as shown by records preserved in air bubbles trapped in polar ice. Through the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests, we have pushed carbon dioxide levels about 43 percent above the high end of this range. Human activities have also increased the atmospheric amounts of other important heat trapping gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. The warming resulting from these increases is leading to massive melting of ice at the poles, and the past year has revealed several disturbing new developments. The assessment made clear that climate change is not just a problem for the future, but is happening now across the United States. In February 2015, the cap of winter sea ice in the Arctic covered far less area than in any previous late winter period. And satellites have now more extensively than ever mapped Earth s two large polar ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, and found that the ice on both is declining at unprecedented rates, adding to global sea level rise (which surged in the latter half of 2014). A new study of a rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet reveals this sector to be in an irreversible state of decline. This sector alone contains enough ice to raise global sea level by 4 feet, and it is melting faster than expected. Researchers say these new findings require an upward revision to current sea level rise projections. New studies have also ftound evidence of increasing societal impacts occurring due to climate change. A new assessment of human health effects developed by leading health experts is now available for public and expert review. Recent research also suggests potentially much larger effects on agriculture than prior studies. That s the bad news. But good news can be found in recent studies that show the value of reducing emissions. Not only will such emissions cuts reduce future climate change, they will also improve our health in other ways, and save us money. For example, a new study examining the true costs to society of continuing to burn fossil fuels finds that when the effects of air quality on human health from energy production are included, the actual costs of burning coal, oil and natural gas are far higher than the use of solar and wind power. This is important information that can inform our energy choices. Other good news can be found in the rapidly- growing capacity and declining prices of solar and wind power. We report the latest science, hoping that it will help us make better decisions. After all, as our late colleague F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel Laureate, said, What s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true? By Don Wuebbles and Jerry Melillo Don Wuebbles works in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Jerry Melillo works in the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass. Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 9

12 What Can We Learn About Disaster Nepal s Hazard mitigation expert Brian Tucker discusses how researchers and the public 10 // Eos 1 June 2015

13 Preparedness from Quake?By Randy Showstack can help minimize death and damage from strong earthquakes. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that shook Nepal on 25 April caused more than 7200 fatalities and more than 14,000 injuries. It displaced about 2.8 million people and damaged more than 190,000 buildings in Kathmandu and other parts of the country. Eos interviewed Brian Tucker, MacArthur Fellow and founder and president of the nonprofit GeoHazards International (GHI), for his perspectives about this earthquake and about hazard mitigation efforts in general. GHI helps vulnerable communities across the world to better prepare for natural hazards such as earthquakes by emphasizing mitigation strategies, guiding communities through retrofits, and building local capacity to manage risk (see geohaz.org). Here, Tucker focuses on the lessons that he thinks geoscientists, decision makers, politicians, and the general public can learn from this earthquake. He also discusses his own reactions to the recent earthquake and GHI s specific efforts to reduce risk in Nepal. David Ramos/Getty Images Eos: Geoscientists can look at disasters such as the Nepal earthquake and feel that their efforts to better understand earthquakes and their consequences, to warn people of risks are futile. What message do you have for geoscientists? BT: The need for geoscientists to provide information about seismic risk and risk reduction options is critically important but, most curiously, is underrated by disaster risk professionals and, I suspect, also by geoscientists. Few disaster risk professionals have information about the human and economic losses their communities can expect as a result of probable earthquakes, or information about how to reduce these losses. Having this information would help them acquire needed resources and design appropriate programs. The geoscientists and engineers responsibility in this process is to translate scientific and engineering advances into language the risk managers and the public can use. A few years ago, GHI s Justin Moresco, with sociology professor Lori Peek of Colorado State University, conducted a survey of more than 100 disaster risk professionals, from government, business, health care, education, and grassroots organizations, in 11 cities rich and poor, big and small around the world. We wanted to learn about the barriers they faced when trying to improve earthquake safety in their cities. The barrier ranked number 1 was lack of funding. Lack of earthquake information came in a distant num- Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 11

14 Sunil Pradhan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Soldiers and residents inspect debris of destroyed buildings in Kathmandu, Nepal, following the 25 April earthquake. ber 6. When we asked these people, however, if they had information about, for example, the human and economic losses their community could expect from a likely earthquake, they said they did not but they would very much like such information. How could they possibly expect to get the funding needed to reduce earthquake risk if they didn t know and make known what losses their communities could expect? How could earthquake risk reduction compete successfully against other challenges facing these communities if the consequences of earthquakes were not known? I suspect that most geoscientists don t realize the importance of providing basic risk information; we may think we re communicating if we publish in our professional journals. Eos: What would you suggest are some of the key understandings that Earth scientists can gain from this earthquake and its aftershocks? BT: I ll give you my answer, which is undoubtedly different from that of card- carrying research scientists: We learned that we already know enough about seismic risk in the Himalayas. What happened in Nepal is just what we expected. Earth scientists and earthquake engineers can see perfectly what will happen to multistory, unreinforced masonry buildings with soft first stories when they are subjected to the ground motions that any city in the Himalayas can expect. This is not obvious to the normal government official or the lay public. Given this, geoscientists and engineers are obliged, in my opinion, to tell the government officials and the residents of those buildings of their risk and their options. Eos: Likewise, is there an opportunity for structural engineers and others including psychologists and social scientists to also gain key understandings from this earthquake? If yes, how so? BT: We geoscientists and earthquake engineers need help accelerating the application of current Earth science and earthquake engineering research into practice. The problem is not primarily a scientific or engineering one: A great local NGO [nongovernmental organization] and even an effective government of a developing country, facing all their other challenges, cannot by themselves reduce risk faster than today s rapid rural- to- urban migration is increasing the risk. We need the help of psychologists, social scientists, and advertising gurus to use the techniques they ve developed in successful public health campaigns, like those to stop smoking, drunk driving, and unsafe sex. In addition, I d like to see that the international development organizations that will fund the reconstruction of Nepal insist that construction employ modern building codes, that funds are allocated for inspection, and that all buildings thus constructed have some kind of plaque that designates them as earthquake resistant. (One would need a Plaque Police to guard against counterfeits.) These plaques would raise awareness of and demand for earthquake- resistant construction in future buildings. That s what s missing now. Even more ambitious, given the enormity of the reconstruction needs: I would like to involve Nepal s reconstruction architects, engineers, and masons from nearby regions, like Assam and Bhutan. They should see firsthand what happened and learn how to prevent this in their own communities. 12 // Eos 1 June 2015

15 A community will reduce its risk of earthquakes when a trusted peer shows that the community s risk is unacceptably large and demonstrates an affordable, socially acceptable, and verifiable method to reduce that risk. Eos: What is your overall approach to earthquake risk reduction, and what concrete ways to prevent disaster serve as your guiding principles when starting a new project? BT: Our approach is based on the work of Everett Rogers s Diffusion of Innovations and resulted in our Theory of Change : A community will reduce its risk of earthquakes when a trusted peer shows that the community s risk is unacceptably large e.g., its children are at significant risk of dying and demonstrates an affordable, socially acceptable, and verifiable method to reduce that risk. The concrete ways we do this are to raise awareness of risk and risk mitigation options, build local capacity, develop public policies and strengthen critical infrastructure, and promote preparedness and prevention. Eos: GHI has a long history of working in Nepal. Can you briefly describe your current and past projects there? BT: In the mid- 1990s we started working with the National Society for Earthquake Technology Nepal (NSET), which was at that time an organization on paper only. With NSET and funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, we developed an earthquake scenario that described the expected consequences on modern day Kathmandu of a repeat of the 1934 magnitude 8.0 Bihar earthquake. Then, working with a collection of about 60 local stakeholders and international earthquake professionals, we developed an action plan of how to reduce those consequences, assuming that we had 20 years to prepare before the next damaging earthquake. As it turned out, we had only 17 years. This action plan became the first strategic plan for NSET, which has grown into a thriving organization. To accomplish something tangible, we also launched some demonstration projects, including the inauguration of an annual Nepal Earthquake Safety Day, held each year on 15 January. We also conducted a seismic retrofit of one school simultaneously training local masons. My daughter returned to this village 10 years later, with an NSET engineer, and surveyed construction undertaken in the village since our retrofit project. The vast majority, about four- fifths, of all this construction employed at least one of the earthquake- resistant construction features introduced in the retrofitted school. In recent years, we ve conducted some evaluations of Kathmandu hospitals. Basically, NSET is doing a great job and hasn t needed our help. Eos: What were your initial reactions your thoughts and feelings, personally and professionally to this earthquake? BT: A swirling flood of complex, even contradictory, emotions: validation because our warnings of great damage were proven warranted; sickness, bordering on nausea, seeing our loss estimates on paper become flesh and blood; satis- Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 13

16 faction that our work and that of our Nepali partners probably saved lives; and some hint of guilt that we could have pushed harder. Eos: Do you know how retrofitted buildings, including the hospitals your organization reinforced, were affected by the earthquake? BT: We ve heard that the schools NSET retrofitted performed well, but we don t yet know what ground motion they were subjected to or if nearby schools that were not retrofitted performed poorly. I read one report that up to 5000 schools nationwide collapsed, which would have been a real tragedy if the earthquake hadn t been on a Saturday. We ll have to investigate, but only after relief operations are over. Eos: Have you faced any obstacles from local governments through your work? Do you have any tips or lessons learned in dealing with local governments? BT: I remember one Nepali high official who became angry at me when he realized, as a result of our study, how vulnerable Kathmandu was: What do you expect me to do? Rebuild our entire city? In general, however, local government officials have appreciated our work. I particularly remember and am grateful for the support of Jamil Mahuad, who was the mayor of Quito, Ecuador, in our first project. He made available his staff to help us assess the vulnerability of his city and make recommendations on how to reduce the risk. He chaired the Social and Economic Advisory Committee of our project and thereby lent us his political clout. I learned from him that we must discover political incentives to implement our recommendations. Mayor Mahuad took a risk by trusting us to behave responsibly (no news leaks), and he showed his courage to publicize the risk faced by his city, once it was known. Subsequently he was elected president of Ecuador. Eos: GHI has put a great deal of emphasis on the need to retrofit schools and develop ways that communities can address earthquake safety in schools. Why this emphasis on schools? BT: As one friend of ours puts it, school earthquake safety is the entry drug to earthquake risk reduction. Strengthening schools is politically popular. Also, we try to leverage the fact that since most governments compel children to sit in schools that were designed and constructed by the government, governments have the responsibility to make these schools safe. Schools can also provide community shelters following disasters. Plus, if you educate kids in school about the nature of earthquakes and how their consequences can be reduced, they ll take these lessons home and into their adult lives. In 2008, I went back to the village where NSET and GHI worked in 1998 and asked the 8th grade students what caused earthquakes and what we can do to reduce their effects. The improvement in understanding was tremendous: They know about plate tectonics! Some of the kids we taught back in 1998 are now 30 years old, perhaps wondering about the seismic safety of their kids schools. Eos: A strong piece of your efforts involves community engagement. What specific methods for community engagement have you found to work best? BT: We try to identify a local champion who truly wants our help. We find someone who was fired up about reducing risk in her community before we arrived, and then we figure The annual National Earthquake Safety Day in Nepal is held each year on 15 January to mark the anniversary of the 1934 M8.0 Bihar earthquake. The photo shows the start of a march in Kathmandu to mark the day in out how we can help her do a better job. Our backing lends some kind of credibility locally. Eos: Are there any issues cultural, political, economic, etc. specific to Nepal that have made your efforts to help ensure earthquake preparedness easy or difficult? BT: The political instability since the assassination of King Birendra in 2001 slowed work. The culture that the future is written makes it difficult to convince people that they can and should change their fate. I ve even been accused of blasphemy by proposing to change when and how God plans to end our lives. Eos: What dilemmas do you face in your work? BT: For me, by far the toughest questions are, How can GeoHazards International, with its limited human and financial resources, do the most good in response to the Nepal earthquake? Should we use our knowledge of Kathmandu and the funding that is materializing to join the efforts of others to help Nepal respond and reconstruct, or should we try to raise support from other sources and to go to, for example, Assam and Bhutan, the next Nepals, and help them prepare for what is coming? Eos: What are the lessons from the Nepal earthquake for politicians and decision makers, whether they are in rich or poor countries? BT: Nepali politicians and decision makers will learn that the earthquake s human and economic costs are huge and recovery will be long probably much larger and longer than they expected. I suspect that these losses will be in line with those estimated in the earthquake scenario we developed for Kathmandu in I would hope that these politicians and decision makers will also realize that those costs would have been greater were it not for the preparedness and mitigation efforts of the local NGO NSET. We need to wait, however, for a careful evaluation of the actual savings as a result of NSET s work; this can take place only after the relief activities are complete. Nepalese leaders should know by now that larger earthquakes do and will occur in the region. I hope that Indian and Bhutanese politicians and decision makers are now asking themselves, How will our communities fare when our earthquake strikes, and what can we do now to reduce the costs? Author Information Randy Showstack, Staff Writer Brian Tucker, GHI 14 // Eos 1 June 2015

17 NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team The Art and Science of Hubble s Images By Ron Cowen How do Hubble images get their vivid colors and subtle shading? The two desktop- sized computer screens in Zolt Levay s office at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., are often ablaze with images of exploding stars, distant galaxies, and ghostly gas clouds. Earlier this year, he was hard at work, putting the finishing touches on a new image (above) of Westerlund 2, a giant Milky Way star cluster, chosen to celebrate Hubble s 25th anniversary. For 22 years, ever since corrective optics fixed the Hubble Space Telescope s blurry vision, Levay has been the observatory s image maven, assembling color portraits of the heavens that have riveted the public. Gray- haired, soft- spoken, and sporting a prominent mustache, Levay begins his work with the raw black- and- white images, Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 15

18 In picking the palette for a heavenly scene, you have to sort of suspend your ideas of what s natural. each taken through a different filter, that Hubble transmits to Earth. Narrow filters allow one specific wavelength like the red light emitted by hydrogen atoms or the cyan emitted by oxygen atoms to reach Hubble s cameras. Broad filters allow a range of wavelengths to pass through, which is more akin to the way the eye perceives color. Many of Hubble s filters are tuned to colors in the infrared and ultraviolet that the eye cannot see. This giant star cluster, known as Westerlund 2, contains some of the Milky Way s brightest and most massive stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team Each wavelength or wavelength range is assigned a color: red, green, or blue. In picking the palette for a heavenly scene, you have to sort of suspend your ideas of what s natural, said Levay. Picking a Palette Consider, for instance, the light emitted by a gas cloud set aglow by the ionizing radiation from a hot nearby star. The cloud will emit light from hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur atoms. Both oxygen and sulfur atoms give off a reddish light, but the two emissions come from completely different parts of the gas cloud and highlight completely different structures. If both the hydrogen and sulfur emissions were portrayed in red, as might seem natural, the image would appear monochromatic, and information about the structure of the gas cloud would be lost. So Levay picks a reddish hue for the emission from hydrogen atoms and chooses green for the light radiated by sulfur, which has a slightly shorter wavelength. For the new image of Westerlund 2 above, which contains some 3000 stars in a region 6 to 13 light- years across, Levay blended visible and near- infrared light recorded from two of Hubble s cameras. What results relays important information: Red dots are tiny, faint stars, only 1 2 million years old so young they have not yet ignited the nuclear furnace at their core. Bright blue stars are mostly foreground stars, not members of the cluster. Shock waves generated when winds from the 16 // Eos 1 June 2015

19 This composite image of the Carina Nebula, a Milky Way star- forming region about 7500 light- years from Earth, combines high- resolution Hubble observations taken at a single wavelength with a color palette derived from multiwavelength images recorded at CTIO in Chile. The image shows at least 12 bright stars that are 50 to 100 times as massive as the Sun. The image was released to celebrate Hubble s 17th birthday. Credit for Hubble data: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/ AURA). Credit for CTIO images: N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley) and NOAO/AURA/NSF Raw images from Hubble and the Cerro Tololo Inter- American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, which were later combined to generate a final image of the Carina Nebula. (a) High- resolution Hubble image, taken in the light emitted by hydrogen atoms. (b) Ground- based image taken in the light emitted by sulfur atoms, assigned a reddish hue. (c) Groundbased image taken with a filter tuned to the light emitted by hydrogen atoms, given a greenish hue. (d) Ground- based image taken through a filter sensitive to light emitted by oxygen atoms, colored blue. Credit: (a) NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). (b d) CTIO/N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), NOAO/AURA/NSF bright stars slam into dense walls of gas may hasten the birth of new stars, scientists speculate. In creating any final image, Levay and his assistant, Lisa Frattare, walk a fine line between making the images pleasing to the public and scientifically accurate. In terms of true color, the final image is not what the eye would see. However, the picture preserves the information on structure and composition recorded by Hubble. These are not scientific images, Levay explained. Yet we do want them to be scientifically valid. He must also contend with the huge range of brightness, from the most luminous stars to the darkest shadows, in each raw image. If too much emphasis is given to the overwhelming brilliance of the brightest stars, you won t see any of the faint detail, even though it s sitting there in the data, he noted. Stellar Evolution, in Subtle Coloring One of Levay s favorite Hubble images and one of the most challenging he s had to assemble depicts a Milky Way star- forming region known as the Carina Nebula. Taken in 2007 to commemorate the telescope s 17th anniversary, the picture shows the life cycle of stars, from birth to death. Newborn clusters of stars are eroding the birthplaces of stars within dusty pillars while the same clusters are also pushing gas together to make new stars. You see this whole range of stellar evolution displayed in front of you, Levay said. Because Hubble imaged the nebula at just one wavelength, the observatory could provide only the sharp detail, not the color. The hues, derived from multiwavelength observations with a ground- based telescope, are more subdued because the instrument on the ground has lower resolution. Levay used ground- based data along with 32 separate pointings of the Hubble observatory to stitch the image together. For a detailed look at Hubble s 25 years of breathtaking images and groundbreaking science, read the Eos.org feature story (http://bit.ly/eos_hubble). Author Information Ron Cowen, Freelance Writer Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 17

20 AGU NEWS Thanks to AGU Reviewers AGU Publications again recognizes outstanding reviewers for their work in 2014, as selected by the editors of each journal. Peer- reviewed literature plays an important role in advancing science. Less well known is the growing use of peerreviewed literature in our legal systems and governments as a basis for regulations, policies, and laws. This literature also provides reliable scientific information for advisory groups such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academies. Quality peer review is thus a critical part of the social contract between science and society. As the uses for this literature have grown, so has the complexity of papers, which now typically include more authors bringing more techniques, data, simulations, and results. This increase in complexity, in turn, has increased the challenge and role of reviewing. The outstanding reviewers listed here have all provided in- depth evaluations, often over more than one round of revisions that greatly improved the final published papers. Many Reviewers: A Key Part of AGU Journals While we note these few outstanding reviewers here, we also acknowledge the broad efforts by the many AGU reviewers in helping ensure the quality, timeliness, and reputation of AGU journals. Overall, AGU received nearly 12,000 submissions and published nearly 6000 manuscripts in Many of these submissions were reviewed multiple times in all, representing more than 26,000 reviews in More than 800 reviewers completed 5 or more reviews, and 87 completed 10 or more. This has happened in the past year while every AGU journal worked to shorten the time from submission to first decision and publication or maintained already industry- leading standards. Several AGU journals regularly return first decisions within 1 month of submission, and most others do so now within 2 months. Reviewers represent a key part of this improvement. Editorials (some already published, some upcoming), along with recognition lists, express our appreciation. Our thanks are a small recognition of the large responsibility that reviewers shoulder in improving our science and its role in society. Additional Thanks In addition, we are working to highlight the valuable role of reviewers through events at the Fall Meeting and other meetings (for example, at this year s European Geophysical Union meeting in Vienna and the Joint Assembly in Montreal). We are extending subscription benefits to those reviewers who repeatedly provide quality reviews. Each reviewer also receives a discount on AGU and Wiley books. We will work with the Open Researcher and Contributor Identification network (ORCID) to provide official recognition of reviewers efforts as soon as this service is up and running, so that reviewers receive formal credit there. Getting Your Feedback We are working to improve the peer review process itself, using new online tools. We have designed a short questionnaire for reviewers to provide feedback and will send a link after each review is completed. We value your feedback, including ideas about how we can recognize your efforts even more, help improve your experience, and increase your input on the science. We look forward to hearing from you. If you d like to respond directly, feel free to take our survey (see https:// r/ AGUreviewers). Once again: Thanks! By Brooks Hanson, Director, Publications, AGU; and Rob van der Hilst, Chair, AGU Publications Committee 18 // Eos 1 June 2015

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